THE MAIL IN PRAISE OF HUEY LONG I was distressed by Elizabeth Kolbert's review of "Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long" (Books, June 12th). Kol- bert suggests that political showmen consistently fascinate Louisiana voters; we indulge their corruption because we find it amusing or because we just don't care enough to oust them, and it doesn't matter to us that our positions in na- tional rankings are deplorable. A. J. Lieb- ling, who insightfully wrote about the Longs, grasped the crucial point that Kolbert neglects. The Longites are often the only politicians willing to act for reg- ular folks. Huey did not merely promise free schoolbooks, free medical care, and new roads to poor people in Louisiana; he delivered them, and both whites and blacks were able to make use of them. As a Southern liberal, I envy Kolbert the luxury of demanding large victories rather than compromising for tiny ones. But now is not the time to compound the national government's efforts to paint Louisiana as a political cesspool and thus excuse its own failings. Now is the time to wonder, "Where's Huey Long when you need him?" Katherine Mooney River Ridge, La. FAITH AND THE REVOLUTION Writing on the French Revolution and the Reign ofT error, Adam Gopnik calls the Terror a "faith-based initiative," and characterizes the Enlightenment regi- cide Robespierre as a man of "faith and tradition" (A Critic at Large, June 5th). But Robespierre, like Voltaire before him, was a Deist, and Deism, as both its Enlightenment and its contemporary adherents would insist, is not a religious faith at all; it is not a belief system de- rived from revelation, sacred scripture, a priestly hierarchy, or a personal encoun- terwith God but, rather, a theist philo- sophical position derived from reason and nature. The hideous pomposity of Robespierre's Festival of the Supreme Being was not calculated to reverse the process of de-Christianization in France but to complete it by offering a cynical alternative to the Catholic liturgy; as such, it was no more a religious faith than the radical editor Jacques René Hébert's cartoonish Culle de la Raison. (For the record, the atheist Hébert was considered by many to be even more vi- olent and bloodthirsty than Robespierre, but that contest may be too close to call.) Gopnik's assertion that Robespierrewas neither anticlerical nor anti-Christian would have come as news to the Catho- lic peasants of the Vendée, whose efforts to restore King and Church were bru- tally crushed by Republican forces. Stephen L. Trainor Professor of English Salve Regina University Newport, R.I THE TERRORIST MIND Steve CoIl summarizes the political sci- entist Robert Pape's findings about sui- cide bombers as showing how "the weak can humble the strong" (Comment, June 5th). This characterization, how- ever, doesn't quite do justice to Papès ac- tual work, which found that suicide at- tacks have been considered by the bombers as defensive responses to mili- tary invasion or long-term occupation of their homeland. In the videotape left by a ringleader of the London bombings, wholly in accord with Papè s analysis, he accuses the British of continuous "atroc- ities against my people all over the world." Pape suggests that we reposition our mil- itary forces so as to contain aggression without occupation, an important point that was unaddressed in CoIl's analysis. Frederick Thayer Professor Emeritus, Public and InternationalAffairs University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pa. . Letters should be sent with the writer s name address and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. They can also be faxed to 212-286-5047. Letters may be edited for length and clarity and may be published in any medium. All letters become the property of The New Yorker and will not be returned; we regret that owing to the volume of cor- respondence we cannot reply to every letter. THE o LET NéW YORKER 4, 1 09 issues. Half a million pages. Easy to search, browse, read, and print. Every article, every cartoon, every illustration, every advertisement, exactly as it appeared on the printed page, in full color. Flip through the magazine or zoom in on a single page. Print any pages or covers you choose. or bookmark pages with your own notes. Search hundreds of thousands of article abstracts and keywords. Browse the complete works of your favorite contributor or all the Profiles or fiction from a given year. Nt l'ltit . . ..",.., ..-- (JR E t -- - " / - & "-" . . '" ( ,.. :. , . \ I, \ \. \ . \ -\ \ \ \ \ \ \'\ \ \ \ \, \\ T , \ 1 \ \ \ \ L ' View an online demonstration at arch ive.newyorker.com. Available at thenewyorkerstore.com and wherever books are sold. THE NEW YORKER, JULY 3, 2006 7